David Robinson, FOIArkansas Project

FOIArkansas ----------------Unlocking the public's business

LITTLE ROCK — Timing and activist journalists had more to do with establishing Arkansas’ modern Freedom of Information Act than he did, says the lawmaker whosponsored the 1967 legislation.

‘’It was just the right thing to do at the right time,’’ former state Sen. Ben Allen of Little Rock said in an interview.

By 1965, some Arkansas journalists clearly were fed up with public officials meeting in secret and withholding government documents.

In December 1965, such secrecy was given credibility when then-Attorney General Bruce Bennett issued an opinion saying a 1953 open meetings law allowed closed meetings of public bodies if ‘’privileged’’ matters were discussed.

Reporters, according to a New Year’s Day 1966 story in the Arkansas Gazette, were irate.

They complained to Richard B. Adkisson, chief assistant attorney general, that public bodies likely would use the opinion to further exclude the public from meetings.

‘’Blame the law,’’ Adkisson told them. He said the 1953 act was poorly drawn and he suggested that the Arkansas press unite to propose a better law.

Although Adkisson didn’t know it, that had already occurred.

Three weeks before the opinion was made public, the Arkansas Chapter of Sigma Delta Chi (now the Society of Professional Journalists) announced it would offer a model law used in other states.

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Ben Allen

’It was one of the two or three most important bills I ever authored,’’ said Allen, a Democrat who now serves on the state Ethics Commission.

Allen also was proud of an attempt to set ethics regulations for lawmakers and lobbyists and of a bill he handled as Senate floor leader for Gov. Dale Bumpers to reorganize state government. Although his name was on the FOI bill, Allen said the press primarily was responsible for drafting it.

‘’The press association and the journalism fraternity made the public aware of the need for it,’’ Allen said, crediting the work of the Arkansas Press Association and Sigma Delta Chi. ‘’I could not have just come out of the blue and passed it otherwise.’’

A stronger freedom of information law also was backed by the new Republican governor, Winthrop Rockefeller, who took office in 1967. Rockefeller and others from his party had been fighting in the courts for public access to voting records and other government documents.

Before the FOI Act, secret meetings were widespread, government documents often weren’t made public and even legislative committees met in secret, said Allen, 74, who served eight years in the House and 24 years in the Senate.

‘’I don’t mean secret in the sense that someone was trying to be

Courtesy of Arkansas Press Association Arkansas Gov. Winthrop Rockefeller signs the Freedom of Information Act Bill (Act 93 of 1967) on Feb. 14, 1967. Joining him at the signing ceremony are (left to right) Robert S. McCord, president of the Little Rock Chapter of Sigma Delta Chi; state Sen. Ben Allen of Little Rock; and state Rep. Leon Holsted of North Little Rock. Allen and Holsted co-sponsored the FOIA bill.

bad,’’ Allen said. ‘’At that time that was the way it had been over the years.’’

But times were changing.

Rockefeller had succeeded former Gov. Orval Faubus, and “there were a lot of new things happening in Arkansas,’’ he said. ‘’The driving force was the journalism fraternity being aware of all these things that needed to be corrected and made me aware of it and made the General Assembly aware of it.’’

Although many lawmakers opposed the FOI bill, Allen said they were not inclined to fight it publicly because newspapers across the state had lobbied and “demonstrated the need’’ for it.

The bill was sponsored in the House by Leon Holsted of North Little Rock, deceased.

It passed without a ‘’no’’ vote in the House or Senate.

The new law, which provided penalties for officials violating it, said public records may be examined or copied and that closed meetings — referred to as “executive sessions” — were limited to personnel matters.

Most of the original language remains intact.

‘’It has served our state well,’’ Allen said. ‘’I guarantee you our state is a better place because of it. Having my name associated with it was the best thing that ever happened to me.’’